Office opinion is split on Sky TV's new MySky HDi box, which lets you watch and record high definition (HD) broadcasts. Or at least over its noise pollution. Ted reckons the whir of its hard drive and cooling system is louder than a PC, and major nuisance value. Scott maintains it's only "a bit loud" (though he adds that he lives on a main road and no longer hears the traffic ...).

Olympics go AWOL
There's also a political problem with MySky HDi. Back in May Sky TV CEO John Fellet told me he wanted to have TVNZ and MediaWork's channels TV1, TV2, TV3 and C4 onboard for Sky HDi, the better to mute Freeview HD's appeal (and the freebie platform continues to charge ahead; as of July 11, 123,903 Freeview decoders had been sold, for an estimated reach of 300,000 people. The pace will pick up with the Olympics - especially with Sony and others now selling widescreens with Freeview decoders built-in).

But as of MySky HDi's July 11 launch, Fellet had only secured MediaWorks' free-to-air HD free-to-air channels. TVNZ refused to sign on. So any one who wants to receive the HD versions of TV1, TV2 or the Freeview-only TVNZ Sports Extra - due to launch with the Olympics - will have to subscribe to Freeview HD (it is possible to run both services through the same TV).

Tour de HD
Our reviews editor is totally sold on MySky HDi overall, incidentally. He's Sky Sport 1 and Sky Sport 2 now look so good, he's watching the Tour de Drugs France ("Even though I hate cycling"), plus NASCAR, golf, and of course the All Blacks (Sky TV has spent tens of millions on new Sony gear to create an HD-capable outside broadcast unit).

We've panned Sky TV's digital broadcast a number of times. It often looks rubbish, with motion-blur whenever an All Black starts running with the ball (OK, that hasn't happened much lately) due to Sky's stingy compression, which allows it to stuff more channels into the same bandwidth. And Scott says the standard definition digital Sky Sport 3 now looks awful by comparison. But in their new high definition digital glory, Sky Sport 1 & 2 (and Sky Movies and Sky Movie Greats) have our reviews ed glued to his set. Scott says even sports events shot in standard definition but upscaled to 1080i HD for Sky Sport 1 & 2 are a great leap forward.

Posted by Chris Keall at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 9 )

One of the more surreal sights in our new telco environment was Telecom Chorus staff wearing Vodafone T-shirts to celebrate the launch of Vodafone's Red Network.

Now Vodafone GM of Fixed line & Broadband, David Joyce, says his company is working with Chorus begin testing Vodafone's new, super-fast VDSL service at the Ponsonby exchange in Auckland. Testing will extend to five further exchanges over the next five weeks.

Orcon has also partnered with Chorus on a similar VDSL trial, says Orcon Group Product Manager Duncan Blair, again starting in Ponsonby. Blair says the trial will expand to Airdale Street in the CBD, Mt Eden and Ellerslie. Like his counterpart at Vodafone, Blair's wary of announcing a launch date at this point.

It's good to see Chorus starting to act as nature - sorry, David Cunliffe - intended. But let's hope this and similar projects expand dramatically beyond five exchanges (for there are 650 in NZ, fact fans. As of this week, Vodafone has moved its own DSL gear into 23 Telecom exchanges; Orcon 21. For both companies, all unbundling so far is around Auckland suburbs).

Under Telecom's three-way operational separation, its Chorus division - launched in March - builds and maintains network infrastructure. Telecom Wholesale then sells bandwidth on that network to all ISPs, including the Telecom-owned Xtra.

VDSL is the highest evolution of copper cable broadband, far outpacing ADSL and ADSL2+ to deliver a mind-blowing 50Mbit/s download and 20Mbit/s upload. The catch: you practically have to live on the doorstep to your local phone exchange to get the full effect. Beyond 1.5km, and speed drops to ADSL2+ level (which is why fibre optic cable will ultimately overwhelm all such attempts to goose the speed of our old copper. Read more about Vector's plans to lay a suburb fibre optic cable network, plus more on VDSL, here).

Posted by Chris Keall at 9:57 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

If you're heading to the Olympics, keep your BlackBerry close and - cough - respectable company.

The Sunday Times reports a top aide to British prime minister Gordon Brown met a woman at a Shanghai disco then, after a couple hours of dancing, took her back to his hotel. Next morning, his new friend was gone - along with his BlackBerry. Officials say the episode has all the hallmarks of a honeytrap set by Chinese intelligence. Read the Times full report here.

Google to buy Digg
Speaking of intrigue, TechCrunch and others are reporting that Google is in talks to buy Digg for $US200 million. For the past three years, the article aggregator (and by all means, feel free to be multicontextual and Digg this story) has earned its living through an ad contract with Microsoft - one of Ballmer & co.'s few wins in their online ad battle with Google.

Posted by Chris Keall at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

I've been fooling around this afternoon with Telecom's new T-Stick, an 8cm long 3G cellular broadband modem that looks like a fat thumb drive and plugs into your laptop's USB port. (It's official name is the Sierra 597 Wireless Compass USB Card; as a useful bonus, it'll also work as a straight 1GB memory stick.) All necessary driver and connection software is on the T-Stick and self-installs within a couple of minutes. Literally, all you have to do is jam the thing into the side of your notebook and wait. A simple software screen lets you connect or disconnect with a click.

Download
The T-Stick's rated download speed is 800Kbit/s*, and using the broadband speed test on Consumer's website I repeatedly clocked around 660Kbit/s. That's pretty good, at least in terms of doing what it says on the packet (rated download speeds are usually fanciful maximums, usually only achievable at an off-peak time, with still weather, while standing directly underneath a transmission tower during the right stage of the lunar cycle).

660Kbit/s is still pretty modest next to my DSL account however, which, despite me living in a street serviced by crummy landlines, usually hits over 3Mbit/s. Yet it was still reasonably snappy for web-surfing, and played YouTube videos smoothly. Unless you want to chug down major chunks of data, or do something interactive like online gaming, the speed's fine for most mobile use.

Upload
With upload speed, I topped out at 511Kbit/s - interestingly, well above Telecom's rated 300Kbit/s. Bear in mind that any kind of broadband speed testing is something of a dark art. Your experience will depend on how close you are to the nearest 3G-capable cell tower, the weather, and how busy the network. But again, it's good to see a telco being conservative and realistic in its product rating.

Payload
The T-Stick costs $49 if you sign-up for a two-year, 1GB a month data plan, you pay $1 a day for your first six months, and for the remaining 18 months you pay $56 a month. A no-term 1GB plan costs $67 a month from the get-go (see the official guff, plus a 3G coverage map, here).

Vodafone's equivalent product - the Vodem - which more or less shares all the strengths and weaknesses of the T-Stick - is cheaper to run, and free if you sign on to a $49-a-month two-year term contract with a 1GB cap. But if you opt for the freedom of a no-term 1GB plan, your Vodem will set you back a steep $299 (see all Vodem plans here).

Stuck with the Stick
As with the 3G iPhone, the two-year contract thing gives me the heebie-jeebies. In the iPhone's case, Apple will doubtless have better models out within six months, or a year max. The T-stick will also get outmoded, fast (which is maybe why it was launched, almost completely un-noticed, smack in the middle of Vodafone's iPhone blitz). It runs on Telecom's CDMA 1x-based "EV-DO rev a" network, which has now entered a sunset phase. It'll still be around for another couple of years, but investment and upgrades will be focussed on Telecom's new GSM network, which will go live in November (and run in parallel with the old network). For similar reasons, I'm not a fan of notebooks with built-in 3G cellular radios, from either Vodafone or Telecom. Cellular wireless is a very fast moving area. Look for both carriers to have mobile data networks that rival DSL speed within a couple of years.

(*A quick note on notation: 1000Kbit/s - Kilobits per second - equals 1Mbit - megabit per second. To confuse things - this is the IT industry, after all - modem speed is also measured in kilobytes - KByte/s - per second. There are 8 bits to a byte, so 1000Kbit/s equals 125Kbyte/s. Telecom hashes things in its T-stick press release, which claims the Stick can pull 800KByte/s).

Posted by Chris Keall at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Theresa Gattung has resurfaced. But not in IT, where her reign at Telecom saw the company's share price fall from $7.75 to under $5 as she underinvested in broadband, backed the wrong cellular network standard, badly miscalculated David Cunliffe's resolve to push through deregulation, wore bad 80s power suits, let Telstra run rings around Telecom's Aussie investments, made ill-advised comments about confusing customers being an OK marketing strategy and, worst of all, maintained a je regrette rien attitude that saw her stubbornly persist with the aforementioned failed strategies. The only thing I'd give her points for was hocking off the Yellow Pages before Google eroded too much of its value (even if that windfall was mostly squandered on a special dividend). Still, I have to admit she was fun to write about.
Her new thing is wool.

More:
Gattung warms to wool industry
Gattung to chair new wool company

Posted by Chris Keall at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

When John O'Hara lost 18.5 hours' worth of email access during the YahooXtra Bubble upgrade fiasco, he was not content with the week of free internet offered as blanket panacea (which O'Hara valued at $15), he took Telecom to the Disputes Tribunal. And last night O'Hara emailed to confim the Tribunal had awarded him $1,000 in compensation for the time - personal time, not work time - that he lost trying to reestablish his connection to his Xtra mail account during the August 07 disruption.

O'Hara comments: " Like many others I suffered a tortuous and inept support process making many calls to technical support in Thailand in a fruitless attempt to regain what I had before the disastrous and disingenuously claimed 'upgrade'". Incidentally it was in fact the replacement of a system with a completely new system requiring new terms and conditions to be agreed to (without any warning) before being able to used rather than an 'upgrade!'"

Our amateur consumer champ also has advice for others wondering where to start: "The Consumer Guarantee Act requires companies to provide services that are fit for purpose, to act with reasonable care and skill and within a reasonable timeframe. Where they do not ample remedies are available." (Read the Act's definition of service failure, and your right to remedy, here.)

"I was able to clearly demonstrate Telecom had failed each of these requirements and so was successful in claiming compensation for my wasted time."

"The process of taking action is against a company is straightforward and inexpensive and can be done through your local Disputes Tribunal." Find out how at www.justice.govt.nz/tribunals/disputes_tribunals.html

Go John!

O'Hara adds that at the hearing, Telecom staff made comments about not wanting to set a precedent. That's not something he has a problem with:

"I'm sure if they had to pay 100,000 people $1000 each they'd do a better job next time. And that's really the point of it. One good thing about the litigious nature of the US is that companies do tend to behave better because of the threat of legal class actions!"

Incidentally, if you're wondering if O'Hara seems more feisty than the average bear, he is. During the 1990s he set up Voyager, one of the country's first independent internet service providers, and certainly the first to get into a slug-fest with Telecom when it launched Xtra back in May 1996 - Voyager, and others, were already in the market at that point, competing for New Zealand's 35,000 internet users.

Posted by Chris Keall at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

Apple says the 3G iPhone sold one million units worldwide during its first three days (enough to overload Apple's activation servers). Local PR refused to break-out NZ figures, so I conducted a scientific survey of two stores on Auckland's Queen Street. A sales rep at Vodafone's 171 Queen Street store - scene of the world-first 3G iPhone sale - said his shop had sold out.

This took me back a bit, as I'd been expecting to uncover anecdotal evidence that the over-priced 1GB plan (the second most expensive in the 21 countries the 3G iPhone was released) had left local punters cold.

But at 171 Queen Street, the rep claimed that all of its allocated 170 3G iPhones had been sold - which sounds pretty good, to me, for one store over three days - and that "it's sold out everywhere". A bunch of guys on their lunch break were hunched enthusiastically around a remaining display iPhone, proving negative press about the 3G model's pricing hasn't dented the device's rock star appeal.

The DS Wireless store up the hill also reported a sellout, though the guy behind the counter said "we hardly got any". Reinforcement iPhones were arriving in two weeks, he'd been told.
Vodafone's Paul Brislen says the last iPhones in the first shipment of "several thousand" did sell out last night (Wednesday night) but that restocking has already started.

More:
1 million iPhones sold? Don't be too sure

Posted by Chris Keall at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 )

The high profile Rod Drury will be slightly less so from today. The Xero founder has officially signed off his blog after "5 years, 1626 posts, 3 companies, 3 children and 10 kilos". (He doesn't specify if that's 10kg up or down. The mystery remains: Segway polo - a path to fitness?)

Rod (above centre, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak left) says in his final entry: "Most of the goals I set out when I started I've achieved, and there are not enough hours in the day to get through what I need to get through - especially with a young family and growing business."

Certainly, Rod's blog was central to publicising the work of the New Zealand Institute and it's call for a publically-owned fibre optic network - elements of which were adopted by the ever-pragmatic John Key when he announced National's broadband policy (read Rod's take here).

Xero is still finding its feet in the emerging software-as-a-service (SaaS) market. Its latest results were mixed, with more customers but less revenue than expected, and Xero shares are below their issue price. Given that, I'd say there's plenty of reason for Rod to keep putting himself and his usually switched-on opinions out there. It's good for the company image and all (he'll still be offering occassional online commentary, but now for Xero's team effort, a blunter environment that's more likely to make messages look self-serving. Your SaaS product held up by lousy broadband? Call for the government to fund a faster roll-out!). So put your blogging shoes back on, Mr Drury.

Incidentally in one of his last posts, Rod takes a typically candid pot-shot at Google Docs, noting angrily that there's no team folder function. My wife and her thesis supervisor also gave up on Google Docs last week. And here at PC World Towers, I had a stab at using it to share the Excel file we use for workflow management. I found Google Spreadsheets was fine for sharing new worksheets, but had trouble importing even simple formulas from existing Excel files (it's supposed to. Google says it's working through "known issues"). Right now, Google's not pushing Docs too hard. Perhaps because of the bug issues; maybe because it's keeping its power dry under Google Gears (which will let you create and edit documents offline) is out of beta. Either way, it's giving Microsoft a lot of time to catch up.

Posted by Chris Keall at 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Recently I've spent some time with a Samsung 52-inch LCD TV, the better to review Freeview HD (here and here; also catch Ted Gibbons' review of Samsung's latest in July NZ PC World, on newsstand now).

Packing up the set, I couldn't help but admire the woman on the side of the box. Or, more specifically, her nifty little panel seat and foot rest that flows, step-ladder style, down from the main TV stand. I

actually went as far as emailing Samsung but, sadly, they don't bundle any cabinets with their TVs, let alone something with that wacky style minimalist chic (personally, in such a cut-throat market, I'd be upselling and bundling like crazy. It's actually really hard to find a long cabinet outside the Danish-built jobs that cost as much as a small car. Answers on the back of a post card).

For more on high definition TV, plus home audio, camcorders, cameras, GPS, iPod-era car audio and more, check out the second edition of our NZ PC World spin-off Gear Guide, which is on newsstands now, and packed with insider shopping tips and tech explainers to help you buy right.

One prediction made in Gear Guide (and, cough, on this blog) was that HDTVs would soon appear with Freeview HD decoders built in. Sony has been first off the blocks (see our news report here). Expect other major brands to follow before Christmas. I got the chance to preview Sony's new sets on Wednesday. As well as the built-in decoders, they also had the added convenience of digital optical out for feeding a surround sound broadcast to your receiver. With standalone Freeview HD decoders costing around $450, and weighing down your cabinet with yet another box (especially if you're running Sky TV as well) other TV makers need to shake a leg to catch up with Sony.

Posted by Chris Keall at 6:19 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Some financial analysis from our friends at joyoftech.com (do visit). All in Yankee dollars of course, and still cheap against Kiwi plans after conversion. But you get the theory.

Posted by Chris Keall at 3:14 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Vodafone's horror week was capped by an inadvertently hilarious interview on NewstalkZB's Paul Holmes' Breakfast this morning.

Holmes gained an exclusive radio interview with Jonny Gladwell, the Auckland student who queued for three nights to become the first person in the world to buy a 3G iPhone.

Appropriately, Holmes placed a call from the studio to the iPhone owner, so he could speak to the broadcaster using his new wonder gadget.

But reception was poor, and as Holmes asked Gladwell to move around the house to find a better signal, it started cutting out altogether. After a couple of minutes, Holmes quickly wrapped it up, to much cracking-up around the studio on the nation's highest-rating radio show. "So much for the iPhone," finished Holmes, as his offsider laughed too hard to add anything.

You can download an audio-clip of the interview here (you have to download the whole audio file for the hour. It's no a very intuitive system; right click the file 07.00 trn-newstalk-zb-akl.asf - and choose Save Target As. The iPhone bit starts 55min 56sec into the file.)

Incidentally, a full-page newspaper ad today reveals Gladwell was in fact a shill for YellowPages.co.nz, with his place in the queue sponsored by the directory service. The ad lists all the items he apparently bought via his mobile while queuing.

"Lucky he ordered all the stuff before he bought his iPhone, with that reception," quipped one of our sales people this morning.

Reception is mostly dependent on the quality of the network connection, of course, but that's probably not an argument any Vodafoners will want to deploy to combat this latest iPhone PR disaster.

Posted by Chris Keall at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

Just a quick note to brag that Scott's pcworld.co.nz 3G iPhone review got picked up by The Washington Post. Check it out here.

Posted by Chris Keall at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 0 )

DATELINE 2.13pm, Wednesday. Our Art Director just walked up Queen Street and reports the two guys who started queuing last night have now been joined by a girl, who has sensibly brought along a bean bag. So, there are now three Kiwis vying to be the first in the world to be ripped off - sorry, buy - a 3G iPhone. Our sister site Computerworld has hosted some video from last night, as our brave queuers are taunted by Aussie visitors.

Our web producer is going to brave the cold tonight to shoot some queue action, so head back tomorrow for some more footage. And visit to pcworld.co.nz at 12.01am tonight to see Scott's NZ-exclusive video review, or tune in to TV1 at 8.15am tomorrow to see Scott and his 3G iPhone on Breakfast (and from around midday on TVNZondemand).

Wait, isn't this supposed to be an entertainment handset that lets you take a few calls as you play your tunes? Maybe so, but Vodafone's 3G iPhone data plan pricing, released this morning, is not just corporate - it's Learjet corporate. $250 a month for a modest 1GB of data (on a minimum two-year contract) is the kind of lettuce you'd expect to fork out if you were a C-suite exec on some kind of ultra-premium BlackBerry plan. I feel so nostalgic for yesterday, when the leaked upfront pricing (from $199) make the 3G iPhone look so attractive. No wonder iPhone price-rage is suddenly swirling everywhere online. The NZ Herald's Your Views section had nine pages of hate comments within hours.

We don't know all the details of Aussie data plan pricing yet, but from what we do know (see the link to Ted's "eye-watering" story, below) an iPhone is going to be cheaper to run across the Tasman. One can only assume that's because Aussies will be able to buy their iPhone from a choice of three telcos (Optus, Telstra or Vodafone), while we've got one.

Our Art Director - who like many has been buzzing for days about the 3G iPhone - was going to start queuing from 11pm to buy his handset. Now - like scores posting to the Herald's site and our own Press F1 - he's saying forget it. And he's not cheap either. He says he'd have been willing to pay up to $120 for the 1GB plan (plans include voice). So who's going to turn up? People who've been about to schedule quick appointments with their bank manager. [UPDATE: and these two guys, whom PC World staff writer Jan Birkeland found on Auckland's Queen Street this Wednesday morning, having already spent their first freezing night queuing to be first in the world for the Friday launch.]

More:
American gadget-freaks eye New Zealand
Vodafone announces eye-watering 3G iPhone plans
Stuff readers overwhelmingly critical
Online petition calls for pre-pay pricing
Herald readers call iPhone pricing a rip-off
iPhone 3G pricing crashes Vodafone site
PC World Press F1ers rebel
Video: Campbell Live rips Vodafone pricing to shreds (welcome back, the John we know and love)

Posted by Chris Keall at 4:10 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 4 )

When you can't access a website, how can you tell if the problem's at your end (say, your firewall over-reacting), or the site's down?

The New York Times has a nod to a site created by 24-year-old Internet engineer Alex Payne, downforeveryoneorjustme.com, which answers that very question.

To pre-empt smart remarks - no, I didn't Photoshop the above screen shot.

Posted by Chris Keall at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

The new Metro has a good cover story on how Aussie streets aren't always paved with gold, what with compulsory super, stamp duty, toll roads, poisonous spiders under the barbie and so fourth.

Yet our convict cousins still have a couple of lifestyle advantages.

At least for geeks.

Today Seven Media Group (owner of Channel 7 and Yahoo7, among other properties) announced a TiVo box (for $A699), to be released in time for the Olympics.

On the upside, it has no monthly subscription (unlike in the US). And it'll record any free-to-air TV channel - including HD broadcasts - using tags like the name of an actor to search for shows on its EPG, or to automatically record a show each time it's on - and similar shows as it "learns" your viewing habits over time.

On the downside, the home networking functions will be disabled, so Aussies won't be able to stream content from their PC to TV. Nor will they be able to directly access clips from the internet. Both crimps are being billed as necessary to make the Aussie TiVo more "user-friendly" but their real function is to try and thwart now-rampant video piracy. TiVo and others would be better to give customers what they want - and how they want - by offering commercial IPTV and movie download services. They only have to look at the record companies to see what happens when you wait too long, or go to war with your own customers (Seven does promise a download service, but not until early next year. Sony has a download service pending for its PlayStation online network - including Australia and NZ - while iTunes Australia put a broad range of TV shows online from June 25 for $A3.99 a show. The iTunes clips are in 640 x 480 resolution. That is, not up to HDTV quality, but on a par with DVD).

Meanwhile Foxtel - Sky TV's commercially-related sibling - is rolling out HD TV in a similar manner to Sky TV here. It's notable however that Foxtel's iQ2 has four TV tuners to Sky TV HDi's two. Like MySky and HDi here, it has a number of TiVo-like features, but nothing like the user-friendliness or second-guess-your-tastes features of the actual TiVo.

Seven's TiVo contact covers New Zealand as well as Australia, but so far there's no word on any local launch.

Shop and awe
Earlier, on June 19, Australia got its first Apple Store. Here we've got a handful of dedicated company shops, but although smartly presented, Samsung and Sony's showcase stores are the size of a small video shop, and pretty straightforward. Apple's giant new store in George St, Sydney goes for all the architectural hey-wow factor of its counterparts in New York and San Francisco with a multi-story glass facade. Check out some photos from one fan boy here.

Posted by Chris Keall at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

With the countdown on to the 3G iPhone's July 11 debut in Australia and New Zealand, Aussies learnt their pricing today.

Telstra will hawk the 8GB version of the 3G iPhone for $A279 ($NZ336) on a $A30 a month, two-year plan, or "free" if you sign up to a $A80 a month, two-year plan. The 16GB version of Apple's musical phone will set Ockers back $A399, or come free on a $A100/month plan. Wi-fi is thrown in free with all plans.

US pricing, through AT&T will be $US199 for the 8GB version and $US299 for the 16GB version ... or $US599 or $US699 with no plan (a first for the iPhone, which has previously always been welded to a two-year contract, as it will be in Oz and NZ).

$A279 is a breath-takingly low price. A Nokia N95, which has many of the same features, including GPS, costs around $NZ1100. It must be below cost (though not according to one report, here). Remember, the first-generation iPhone sold for $US599 tied to a two-year contract on its initial, US-only release - and still costs more than $NZ1000 through parallel importers (who include the cost of unlocking an iPhone for NZ).

Vodafone will take an initial hit, but recoup its money through monthly plans (apparently Vodafone and other telcos in the worldwide July 11 roll-out haven't been cornered into Apple's unprecidented US deal, which saw Cingular secure exclusive iPhone bragging rights by agreeing to pay Apple a slice of the revenue on every call).

Here at PC World Towers, we know Vodafone's NZ pricing, though we're still under NDA for another few days (keep watching this space ... and watch out for Scott on TV1's Breakfast with one of only two units in the country July 10).

What I can say is: Vodafone's 3G iPhone pricing will wipe out the parallel importers' Apple business.

Posted by Chris Keall at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 8 )